Temp to Time Lady
by pricklypinkrose
Summary: Just as the Doctor is about to wipe Donna's memories in Journey's End, he learns that she actually does have the mental capacity and that she need not have her memories wiped. Wilf can reveal the reasons behind this. When Lord President Rassilon hears of this, he is convinced that Donna is the Hybrid and demands that she and the Doctor return to Gallifrey.
1. Prologue: Hair

_Sit down, Donna. Let me tell you a story…_

The TARDIS is secured. Doctor, you will step forth or die.

 _It begins many moons ago, when I had just left home and was ready to face the world._

 **Thump thump, thump thump.** Right then. All of us together, yeah? **Thump thump, thump thump.** Donna? *gasps* Yeah.

 _I heard an almighty bang, and when I looked up, curly strands of mousy hair poked out of a red telephone box._

Daleks reign supreme. All hail the Daleks. **Thump thump, thump thump.** Daleks reign supreme. All hail the Daleks.

 _Suddenly, a face popped out the door. "Sorry." she said. "Just reigning it in. New TARDIS, you know how it is."_

Donna! You're no safer in there. *Doors swing shut with a bang* Doctor! What have you done? It wasn't me, I didn't do anything!

" _Oh." Surprise flooded her face. "This isn't Gallifrey, is it? I mean I'm glad, Rassilon's a pain."_

Oi! Oi, I'm not staying behind! The Tardis is a weapon, and it will be destroyed. *Trapdoor opens* *TARDIS falls* Doctor!The _Crucible_ has a heart of Z-Neutrino energy. The TARDIS will be deposited into the core. But you can't! You've taken the defences down. It'll be torn apart!

 _Though her nonsense words confused me, I could tell that this woman was different, though how she was different I was soon to learn._


	2. Chapter 1: Hands

The Doctor watches as his TARDIS floats in the Z-Neutrino heart of the Crucible. Inside, Donna screams as lights shatter, scattering shards of glass onto the TARDIS floor. Fire takes hold of the console and threatens to destroy the intricate Time Lord technology.

"But Donna's still in there!"

"Let her go!"

The female and the TARDIS will perish together. Observe. The last child of Gallifrey is powerless.

"Please. I'm begging you. I'll do anything! Put me in her place! You can do anything to me! I don't care! Just get her out of there!"

Donna collapses to the floor, attempting to shield herself from the fire and debris. Thump thump, thump thump. Suddenly, everything goes quiet. Thump thump, thump thump. The Doctor's amputated hand bubbles eerily inside its container. Thump thump, thump thump. Donna looks over at it, her hand lifting from the ground. Thump thump, thump thump. She reaches for the hand, her finger connecting with the glass. Thump thump, thump thump. Regeneration energy wisps from the hand, floating up Donna's arm and surrounding her body. Donna gasps, having trouble breathing because of the energy. The container shatters, piercing the silence.

You are connected to the TARDIS. Now feel it die.

Donna sits up, and crawls towards something that clearly puzzles her. The hand is now laying on the TARDIS floor, glowing with regeneration energy, its fingers twitching and its yellow-orange light illuminating Donna's face. Suddenly, the regeneration energy shoots out into the form of a naked man, who jolts awake and bolts upright. Its face takes a familiar form.

"It's you!"

"Oh, yes."

"You're naked."

"Oh, yes."

Total TARDIS destruction in ten rells.

Rose takes the Doctor's hand in hers.

Nine, eight, seven, six…

The other Doctor grimaces, jabbing his finger at something on the TARDIS console. The TARDIS engine whooshes.

Three, two, one.

Soon after that first meeting, I saw her again, (Eileen was her name, I later learned) and that telephone box which was now in the park. We sat down together on a park bench and she told me stories of her home planet, which had red grass and two suns. She said that when the sun rose, the silver leaves on the trees made it look like the whole forest was on fire. Her stories fascinated me, but what I loved equally was her TARDIS. It was bigger on the inside, something she attributed to her species' superior engineering. When you stepped through the door, you got the most amazing feeling: like you were being protected by something bigger than yourself. Eventually, we had a child: a beautiful baby girl. I was the happiest I had ever been in my entire life, but Eileen was worried sick. I would have liked the child to grow up as she was, half Gallifreyan, but Eileen said she knew how it felt to be excluded from your own species, and she did not want to subject her daughter to such a fate. I couldn't argue with that, so we locked away everything Gallifreyan about the child in a pocket watch. We hid the pocket watch and raised her as if she were human, and we had a wonderful time together, all three of us. However, when Sylvia was ten, Eileen died. She got hit by a car. Sylvia and I were devastated; I mean, what can I say? I had lost the woman I loved and Sylvia had lost her mother. Soon after the accident, a woman appeared at our door. She said she was Eileen, though they looked nothing alike. She convinced me she was Eileen in the end, as she had all the memories that Eileen would have had, and she put the change of appearance down to a Gallifreyan survival strategy. I believed her, but Sylvia wouldn't accept the change. Eileen was so crestfallen that she decided that she had to leave. I tried to get her to stay but she wouldn't. We said our last goodbyes in the park we had first spoken, and she got into her TARDIS and ran away. I couldn't believe that I had lost the woman I loved twice in one day, but I knew I would never forget her.

The Doctor said goodbye to each of his friends as they exited the TARDIS one by one. Eventually, just he and Donna remained.

"I thought we'd try the planet Felspoon. Just 'cause. What a great name - Felspoon. Apparently, it's got mountains that sway in the breeze. Mountains that move - can you imagine."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because it's in your head. And if it's in your head, it's in mine."

"And how does that feel?"

"Fantastic, brilliant. Molto Bene. Great big universe packed into my brain. You know you can fix that Chameleon Circuit if you just try and hotbind in the fragment links. Nah, never mind Felspoon. You know who I'd like to meet? Charlie Chaplin. I bet he's great. Charlie Chaplin. Shall we do that? Shall we go and see Charlie Chaplin?"

"Donna, there's never been a human/Time Lord metacrisis before. And you know why."

"Because there can't be. But Doctor, I don't have a headache and I can speak just fine. Why do you think that is?"

"I don't know. Donna, let me search your mind."

"Wait, Doctor no. Oi, stop!"

The Doctor placed his hands gingerly on Donna's temples. It took him a while to find any memories of use to him because all of Donna's few memories were hidden under his extensive collection. He did though find a memory that was very important: a story that Wilf had told Donna when she was only six years old. Clearly Wilf hadn't thought that she would remember it, but remember she did.

"Donna, do you remember a story your grandfather told you when you were six?"

"No..."

"Well, it seems that your grandmother was a Time Lady!"

"What? No, Doctor, that's not true! She was a perfectly normal human who died in a car crash!"

"She did get hit by a car, but she regenerated and when your mum didn't recognise her she fled in her TARDIS."

"Oh my God. But Doctor, that means I'm..."

"A quarter Gallifreyan. Donna, you can stay half and half.. Your mind has the capacity!"

"Well, spaceman, I say we go to Felspoon after all to celebrate!"

"Brilliant idea. Allons-y!"

The TARDIS abruptly flipped upside down, tossing Donna and the Doctor about like rag dolls.

"Aah!" exclaimed Donna, in a crumpled heap on the TARDIS ceiling. The Doctor, clearly used to this kind of fiasco, was holding onto the console with one arm and rapidly fiddling with buttons and levers with the other.

"How on earth did you manage-" began Donna.

The TARDIS screeched and flipped again.

"Whoah! What is going on?"said Donna.

"Transmat!" the Doctor exclaimed, too busy to elaborate.

"But that's instantaneous; what's the TARDIS doing?"

"She's resisting!"


	3. Chapter 2: Arguments

The Doctor pulled a whatsit and pressed a doodad. The TARDIS straightened out and stopped moving.

"That's it. You tried your best." the Doctor said to the console, gently stroking it. He typed some more and as he read the screen his brow furrowed. He turned around and said

"You'll never believe where we're headed."

Donna tilted her head impatiently.

"Gallifrey!"

"What?!"

"Exactly. I think High Council wants to see us."

"That can't be right. Doctor, what would they want with us?"

"Ah…"

The Doctor avoided Donna's gaze, instead staring wistfully at the TARDIS console.

"Donna, have I ever told you about Gallifrey?" he said, still not looking her in the eye.

"I've got your memories, spaceman, so I know everything you do."

"Have you found anything about … Gallifreyan legends?"

"Doctor, what are you trying to say?" asked Donna, sensing the Doctor's reluctance to share his thoughts.

"Oh, nothing. Hey, where do you want to go now?"

"Doctor, I'm part human, not part idiot. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's bothering you."

"A long time ago, the Matrix made a strange prediction. It said that there would be born a… Hybrid, it was called. A Hybrid of two great warrior races that would stand over the ruins of Gallifrey and unravel the Web of Time."

"The Matrix's a bit melodramatic. Unravel the Web of Time? Bloody hell!"

"Donna, the Matrix has never been wrong. They have reason to be scared."

"But what does that have to do with me? I'm no one special."

"Donna, you're the most important woman in the universe. You are the first ever metacrisis half-human half-Gallifreyan. No one knows what you can do."

"Doctor, people fear the unknown. I've already got Rassilon thinking I'm some bloody Hybrid. Who knows what'll happen when more people hear about me." Donna said, bitterness seeping into her voice.

"They will respect your intelligence!" the Doctor said, indignant and frustrated.

"Doctor, do you know how many people are outcasts, lonely, because of their intelligence?

"Ha, believe me, I know loneliness." the Doctor said, sadness threatening to crack his elegant façade of anger.

At that Donna's wave of emotion broke and was replaced with a numb sorrow. How could she cope with an entire change of being and the Doctor not understanding? Exhausted, she wandered down the TARDIS halls until she found her room, in which she promptly collapsed on the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

The Doctor awoke happily and sat up, until he remembered his last conversation with Donna, at which he groaned and fell back onto the bed. How could she not be happy about having Time Lord intelligence _and_ human compassion? As thrilled as he was to be able to travel with her still, she completely confused him.

Donna met the Doctor in the console room, where he was leaning against the railing awkwardly and wringing his hands.

"We're here. We should be in the Citadel but the TARDIS landed us on the plains." he said, after a few moments.

 _So you're going to ignore last night then?_ thought Donna. _Fine._

"We'd better go and see what they want." said the Doctor.

"Good idea." she replied, a fake smile plastered to her face.

"Um, Allons-y!" he said, unsure if his catchphrase was an appropriate way to respond to Donna's uncharacteristic lack of life.

"Damn it Doctor, all I want is a little understanding!"

"What?" Apparently it was not the appropriate way to respond.

"I can't believe that you don't see how horrible this has been for me! You keep going on about how smart I am now and how I am unique! Do you know how it feels to change completely overnight?" She immediately remembered that the Doctor regenerated, but redeemed herself by saying "You said yourself how regeneration is like dying. Another woman walked away from the TARDIS that day but you don't seem to realise that. I have all of her memories and her body but I'm _not_ her! I need time to get used to that!"

Finally, Donna was speaking the Doctor's language.

Still reeling from the surprise, the Doctor said "Well, if you'd like to go and... lie down?"

"Doctor, it's fine. Let's just open the door and see what they want." Donna said gently, knowing the Doctor was trying his best.

 _This is the right moment_ thought the Doctor.

"Allons-y!"

After a lengthy walk and extensive conversation on some detail of engineering, the Donna and the Doctor arrived at a familiar place: a derelict barn on the plains. They walked inside, unsure of what they would find.

An old woman fussed inside, oblivious to her uninvited guests.

"Why are they ringing all the bells? Never heard so many. What's gone wrong this time? All the fuss they're always making." she muttered to herself. She looked up, and upon seeing the intruders, exclaimed "You, up there! You're not supposed to be there! I've just put all that back. It's for the boys, if any of them ever want to come-"  
Suddenly her eyes widened and something clicked inside of her mind. The Doctor raised his eyebrow and a smile hinted on his lips.  
The woman, though delighted to see him, did not share the Doctor's enthusiasm.

"They'll kill you." she said.


End file.
